Stantsiya Yasen
|
Gomel

Execution of the Yasen Jews in Stantsiya Yasen

1 Execution site(s)

Kind of place before :

Forest

Memorials :

Yes

Period of occupation:

1941-1944

Number of victims :

About 100

Witness interview

Galina I., born in 1925, remembers: «There was a number of Jewish families living near the railroad. We had Jewish neighbors. There were also Jewish children in my school. But I do not remember any more their first names. The teacher was also Jewish. There was a synagogue that was a beautiful wooden building. But it doesn’t exist anymore. The Jews were good people - they were very generous with us. » (Witness N°829, interviewed in Iassen, on June 25, 2014).

Historical note

Yasen is a very small village, 20 km west of the city of Bobruisk. The village is divided into 2 parts. Yasen itself, and Stantsiya Yasen on the railway line going to Minsk. Before the war, many Jewish families lived in Stantsiya Yasen. There was a wooden synagogue back at that time. The village was occupied by German troops in the middle of summer 1941.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

According to the documents, there is little historical information on the fate of the Jews during the German occupation. The main part of the information comes from the oral testimonies collected by Yahad. A short time after the German occupation in the summer of 1941, one morning, the policemen came to look for Jews in their own houses. They gathered them in 2 houses where they stayed for approximately 1 year, under the supervision of local policemen. The Jews did not work. There were approximately 100 people. In summer 1942, the Jews were taken by the Germans in a column on foot towards the shooting site, in a grove near the railroad. The Jews were forced to dig their own pit. After the war, bodies were exhumed and re-buried in the Jewish cemetery of Bobruisk.